Fatima's Diary

reflections for the lost

46. Down the Rabbit Hole

We were easily able to flit and creep our way into the inner passageway of the wall. Slowly and cautiously, we invisibly made out quiet way to the door whereupon our foes were concealed. Whit and I were able to disarm the traps guarding the door, but we knew they would reset once we made out steps deeper into the Manor.

Luck guided us this night, and at times I felt as if the winds of fortune would batter me like a doll upon the torrent, but then I could feel a soft warmth below me, as if I truly were being sheltered for all time in the Creator's hand.

Mental maps we drew of the intersecting corridors, and more than once we followed a suspicious Abrantier noble to the door of their bedroom, to know where each of our foes kept to themselves in until the morning muted light. It was on the upper floor, under where the tower I supposed should be, there set before us two doors, side by side leading double wide into a black bricked room. Whit easily wormed us within this room, and from above, I could feel this twisting, pulsing thing, a malevolent eye staring at me, wide and gaping in unfashioned hate.

Above our heads within a stange, brilliantly blue and purple matrix of energy and darkness was a multifaceted crystal gem.

I knew the fitful darkness and enormous bulk of laboratory glass tubes and equipment to be my ally as Muldavious and his mage brother Loramain entered the room. Whit and I did not dare communicate, nor barely at the most relaxed state breath, as our two arch-foes flew up to the evil crystal gem and locked it in frames of green and yellow energy, pushing it back and forth to and from each other. I do not know how long it lasted, our terrified comatose state of hiding and concealment, but after a time the two Abrantier ceased their magic and compared experiences, each recorded by Loramain in a small platinum and blue velvet book. They exited the room deeply in conversation. It was after Muldavious stepped shortly back into the room that I truly felt sheltered by Ilâh's Mercy. He did not stop, he did not see, and Whit and I did not wait for a second chance to flee.

Reporting what we had eavesdropped to our companions, it was swiftly decided that Whit and Thea would go back into the Manor, under a deeper shadow of night, and Thea would cast her spell of language comprehension upon herself prior to hopefully retrieving the journal for our information. Whit and Thea joked a few times upon coming back at the ease of which they were able to somehow dupe Loramain into believing in his own traps were not being disarmed, and by the way Thea didn't joke as readily as Whit did, I suspect it really was no easy feat. The information they bared to us, gleaned from Thea's freshly summoned ability to read the Infernal written language of demons, was some of our worst fears and faintest hopes combined.

Muldavious has been completely taken over by Arawn, and is acting as his hand in the world of the wakened. Loramain and Halimar the Blackguard Paladin were similarly taken by Arawn, but in a lesser degree. The rest of the vile household have been dedicated to Chemelosian, Sorche, and Ballok, by pacts their ancestors made many hundred years ago, their blood still carrying the force of an evil bound into their world so long past.

Arawn, through the half true demon, half not properly true mortal Muldavious Abrantier, has been working to subvert the crystal gem, the physical symbol and continuer of the dark pact, into a unholy beacon of Arawn's infectious chaos. If Muldavious and his kin succeed in their ritual in two nights, when the moon is black but high, Arawn's will and control will wash over these lands, dooming everyone to a fate darker then their present lot. During that ceremony, there will be a brief time when the Crystal will have it's older, more ancient evil drained from it, and it will be prepared to properly radiate Arawn's infection.